The Seduction Aria From Mozart's "Don Giovanni"

 One can while away hours watching performances of Mozart's aria "La Ci Darem La Mano," from "Don Giovanni."

The opera of operas! I have seen "Don Giovanni referred to that way and I cannot say I disagree.

What is fun about "La Ci Darem La Mano" is that it is plain and simple a seduction aria. Don Juan is out to seduce this peasant girl who is getting married. And you really don't need a translation of the words, you can tell darn well what is going on. It is the international language of love, as the old joke goes. And you know the exact moment when she makes her decision that yes, she will go with him. This is the kind of aria only Mozart could write because he knew his stuff. Beethoven, for all his genius, could not have written this. And actually he was kind of shocked by it.

There are a million performances I want to feature. They get like salt peanuts, you cannot stop with just one. It is a simple aria however there are so many ways you can go with it. Invariably, at least if you are going to do it right, it involves a certain amount of manhandling. On occasion I have gotten into it with someone in the comments section about that. Some high-minded person objects to what is going on and it falls to me to point out that I am sorry however it has to be that way.

The above performance is an absolute classic. The good old '80s, you cannot beat them, you know? Beautiful Kathleen Battle in her hot pink, and handsome Thomas Hampson who demonstrates many times on YouTube that he knows what to do with this aria.

The acting is wonderful on both sides. Miss Battle, her face says it all, how she's struggling, and when she finally gives in. A tremendous moment -- she leans back against Hampson. He's so much bigger than she is, and he uses his size to his advantage -- just stands there, sure of victory. I mean who could resist him. His hand gestures throughout are amazing, too. I have never seen a complete "Don Giovanni" with him as the Don and now I have to look one up.

Much praise to both of them for the ending! I will not give it away but my guess is you could not get away with it now. The audience goes wild.

I will have to post other performances. I limit myself today to one because otherwise it would become overwhelming and I would never write the post.

Such fun!

Los Angeles and "The Magic Flute"

I was listening to the Los Angeles Opera's "The Magic Flute" just now on WNED. The staging seemed kind of boneheaded, from what I could make out. Just for one thing, they had the Queen of the Night as a spider. The Queen of the Night isn't supposed to be a spider.

The magic touches are real fun as you can see in this video.



You can get creative with "The Magic Flute." I am not being a grinch and saying you can't. You can do a million things with it. Artists including Maurice Sendak, whose work appears up above, have had a great time with it. If this production could have let go of that silly '20s look they were trying to get, it would have been magic.

But you have to keep the basics. It is a fairy tale opera and when you start making Tamino not look like a prince and Papageno not look like a bird catcher, you are losing something. And about the Queen of the Night, she is supposed to be beautiful and cool and fun to look at and eventually you figure out who and what she is. Her appearances are supposed to be show stoppers, and they usually are.

Another thing about the Los Angeles Opera production, I give the thumbs down to the snips they gave you here and there of Mozart's piano fantasies. You cut and paste this music like that, it shows your superficial "shuffle" relationship with it.

However.

That opera's ending always gets me!

Maybe it's the triumph of good over evil. In the Catholic Church we are taught that good wins out in the end, that God will triumph over the forces of darkness, that the battle is already won. "The Magic Flute" is set in ancient Egypt so they are singing about Isis and Osiris. Anyway, good over evil, the sun coming out, everyone happy, the battle is won.

So it was with the Los Angeles Opera. At the end you just hear that chorus and you forgive everything. Maybe that was the point, who knows.

In this Metropolitan Opera clip the chorus in question starts at 3:39. That is Kathleen Battle as Pamina and she does a kind of neat feisty skip when she joins Tamino for their walk up to where Sarastro is waiting. Sarastro is Kurt Moll -- kind of handsome, I never knew what he looked like. This is several years ago and they don't have the L.A. Opera's special effects but it is simple and good. And the Queen of the Night is the Queen of the Night.



One of these days we will compare closing choruses of "The Magic Flute" in how it looks in various productions. Meanwhile, because this is a tough Monday and we need the oomph, here is an audio clip that gives you some translations.  This just has the music but I like what the poster wrote: "Turn up the volume more and more while listening."

Do it!

 

Alleluia chorus

Today I had to go to a modern Mass which, I usually go to the Tridentine Mass, so that is a switch for me and a not welcome one. However, there was a nice touch: For the Alleluia before the Gospel, they used the melody from the Alleluia from Mozart's "Exsultate, Jubilate."

It is not as if you got to hear the whole thing, but still, that is music I love. I love just being reminded of it.

To be reminded of a time when the Catholic Church produced decent music!

Here is a performance of the "Alleluia" from a church in Colorado.



Wow, a Catholic church, too! It was Christmas Eve -- they say that in the description -- but still, to have an actual orchestra, and an orchestra that good! That orchestra sounds terrific to me.

Oh, but darned if, at the end of the performance, you do not get applause and whoops and all kinds of hooting and hollering. Catholics, we just cannot get it right as far as music goes. Just cannot. At the Mass I went to today, they kept stopping things to applaud. Plus, after Communion this kids' choir gets up with a guitar and some woman steps up to the mic and says, "Please be seated." This is the middle of Mass. Don't tell me what to do, you know?

Where was I? Oh yes, the Mozart "Alleluia."

Here is our Western New York diva Renee Fleming. She has the right masterful touch for this sort of thing and I like the joy she puts across. I can only imagine how it must feel to sing that last Alleluia, when it hits that high note. It must feel great!



You really owe it to yourself to hear the piece in context which is at the end of "Exsultate Jubilate," which Mozart wrote at 17. It's all on YouTube sung by various singers but meanwhile here is beautiful Kathleen Battle to get you started.



That gown!! Exquisite. If I believed in reincarnation I would wish to come back to earth as a wonderful soprano.

Singing Mozart's "Alleluia!"

Magic in a Mozart mass

This being May it might be fun to explore, off and on, some music devoted to Mary. There is so much of it and it is so glorious!

Here is something to start with. I have always found it interesting that Mozart's "Coronation" Mass was written for the crowning of Mary and not for the crowning of a king. The whole "Coronation" Mass is exquisite. But there is one particular part of it that kills me.

That is in the concluding "Agnus Dei."

A crash course in Latin in case you are new to this: The words to the prayer are "Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis": "Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us." At first, Mozart has the soprano sing it straight, without pause, to a melody of rapturous beauty.

But then when it repeats comes this weird moment. The singer is singing "Qui tollis peccata" -- "Who takes away the sins" -- and right then Mozart makes a surprise stop and the orchestra echoes the melody. Since I was a teenager that has given me shivers. It is as if there is something invisible in the room with you!

So you hold your breath. And time stands still. And then he lets the phrase finish.. "Peccata mundi."

"The sins of the world."

Ah.

That happens in this video at 3:42.

Then at 4:25 there is another magical moment where the music melts into the "Dona nobis pacem."

And at 5:10 all the voices start blending and building into the great triumphant fanfare that bursts forth at .. let's see ... 5:43. That is thrilling, almost like Beethoven's "Ode to Joy." Such faith, such power!

Admittedly I have an overactive imagination. But I see faith in that shivery moment at 3:42. It makes you stop and think about what the words mean. Mozart might not have thought that out consciously but that is the effect it has. He stops the prayer and you feel something and you are not sure what it is.

It gives you pause.

That is a nice video, I have to say. Herbert von Karajan is conducting and Kathleen Battle is the soloist and throughout that vast quiet melody, they both look as if they are in a trance. It is touching to see Karajan mouthing the words. And this is not just a performance. It seems to be an actual Mass.

At the end they all look as if they are coming out of a dream.

What a beautiful way to pray!